Hellfire
by BitterGlitter
Summary: Because nobody ever expanded upon the idea of getting powers via curse, like the trolls mentioned, we now have a /very/ warm welcome prepared for Hans when he gets home.


...hey, look who's back after... years. Let's just leave it at years.

So yeah, if anyone is even still holding out hope for any of my stories, I'm sure this isn't what you wanted, but this is all I've been able to bring myself to publish lately. It's inspired by this post on tumblr: thestaramongspacerocks tumblr com/post/78003264672/adventuresonpaper-thewanderingtrickster (add in the dots where the spaces are, I can't post links here) and I might get around to adding more, but for now I don't really have a plot in mind. I just wanted to drabble a bit.

(I still love this movie, sorrynotsorry).

* * *

It was agonizing, and the absolute calm of the seas didn't help. A steady wind conspired to speed the journey along, but it didn't dare to stir up the oceans. They would arrive any moment, and he would rather be shipwrecked than face the welcome he was bound to receive.

Word traveled slowly to the Southern Isles, but she knew everything. He had never stopped to question it until it was his faults that were bound to be revealed. For never leaving the castle, his mother was pretty damn well-informed.

The frenzied shouts of the sailors above deck alerted him to the inevitability of his situation. He had no chance to escape now, and he had tried. No one knew of the quest that he had been tasked with. One that twelve brothers had failed and perished for. One that had picked them all off, one-by-one, until he was the last one left. Thirteenth in line for a mission that would ultimately mean his death if not completed.

Hans was a dead man, and knowing it was worse than the prospect itself.

The guards came to escort him back to the palace. Resigned to his fate, he presented no resistance. The shame of returning with an armed guard was nothing compared to the dread of what was to come. The screams of twelve older brothers as they learned the consequences of failure still haunted him. Twelve empty tombs taunted him with the knowledge that one would soon bear his name.

The guards bid him good luck, and he knew that no amount of luck could get him out of this one. He had no more than touched the doorknob when the great wooden doors swung open. The room beyond was lit only by a fireplace opposite a winged armchair, which he knew was occupied by his bane. He had very little contact with the woman, except to be told time and time again that his only purpose was to claim another kingdom before ever being considered for the throne of his own.

"How dare you show your face here. Did you think I had not heard of your failure, that I would perhaps spare you because some witch nearly froze the kingdom?"

He had no answer; he couldn't speak at all. The woman tapped her foot impatiently and the fireplace seemed to burn brighter. Despite the roaring flames, the room felt like ice. Even Elsa couldn't manage to create a cold this deep.

"You had every chance to steal the crown, and yet here you are, crawling back to mother with nothing but a sob story."

"The queen was-"

"You think I don't know about her? That is no excuse!" He hated how she always knew what he was going to say and how to immediately discredit it.

Even hatred of this woman couldn't dull the fear of what was going to happen.

"Thirteenth in line and thirteenth to fail. I had really hoped you would prevail, Hans. The queen practically deposed herself. The sister was dead!"

He stumbled back, a sharp blow to his chest turning his vision red. He glanced up at the woman, who stared down her nose with an air of disgust. She flicked her wrist and it happened again, this time threatening to steal his consciousness. He fell to the ground, biting back a scream. The echos of twelve older brothers' were enough torment as it was.

The chill of the room was gone, replaced by a hellish atmosphere sorely deprived of air. He chanced a glance up, but could only see a blinding white light. His ears were ringing, perhaps for the better. The heat only became more intense the longer he dared to withstand it. He couldn't even cough away the smoke, because the fire was ripping the air away from him.

It was over in an instant. Darkness returned, along with the bone-gnawing chill. If anything, the cold was more intense. It burned almost as badly as the flames. The sudden reprieve was agony.

He wondered if death had finally shown some compassion and taken him. It was more than he could expect, in either case.

"It was more than he deserved. Thirteenth to fail, with twelve brothers to learn from, he should have been the first to succeed."

The darkness began to recede and with it the chill. Was this death? It didn't feel like the empty void he had feared.

No, the room was reappearing. Unless he was having one of those out-of-body experiences, he was definitely not dead.

He rose uncertainly to his knees, coughing violently to rid his lungs of the smoke he had inhaled. When he could once again breathe, he found the silence that met him unsettling.

"You should be dead. Men hundreds of times stronger than you were consumed in an instant. You shouldn't be alive."

Slowly, the room started to warm again. The woman rushed over to him, lifting him by the collar. "How did you survive? Was it the witch, Elsa?"

"No," he gasped, trying to steady himself. "She... Had nothing to do... With anything..."

"Liar!" She pushed him away from her and he nearly fell back to the chilled floor. Another sharp burst of pain hit his arm, but this was far duller than the last. He looked to see that aside from the pre-existing scorch marks, not even his jacket had been fazed. "Impossible..." His mother stared in horror, while he remained stunned.

His hands were tingling, and the gloves were too warm. He slowly pulled one off, only to drop it. Swirling, orange flame patterns were etched across his skin in glowing curls. They pulsed as the tingling sensation grew.

A glaring blaze formed in his palm and the orange lines faded. He released it in shock, and a stream of bright white flames shot across the room. His mother had stopped it within seconds, but he was unable to extinguish it.

"Go on then. Control it."

He was trying, but it only grew. If he closed his fist, the flames only spread around it. If he tried to blow it out, it only grew. Waving it only sent embers flying in every direction. "I can't..." he admitted.

"You will. I will not have you burning down the palace because you cannot control it. You know how, now show me that I won't have to kill you some other way."

He did know, but he would never admit it. He would never acknowledge that he and the snow queen were anything alike. That curse was hers to bear, not his.

But he did try to make it work. He tried to calm the frantic thoughts racing through his mind. He tried to relax and ignore the burning flare. It shrunk, slowly at first, and eventually fizzled out.

"Good."

"There is a way to reverse it?" he pleaded.

"If there was, do you think I would not have found it by now?"

"The trolls, they could save a frozen-"

"The trolls are useless, as is anything else already discovered. There is no 'cure' for this curse. This isn't a frozen heart. This is a condemned soul. There is no reversing it. There is only controlling and utilizing.

"You may yet prove useful, Hans. Do not make me change my mind."


End file.
